2001 Calendars and Date Books

review

by Amanda Silvers

Every year around this time, I begin shopping for a new calendar and appointment/date book. I also recommend calendars and date books to my coven members, students and friends, and of course calendars make great Yule gifts. So I take a personal interest in pagan- and witch-oriented calendars and date books. Following I cover those for 2001, with some smaller or pocket calendars in the mix.

My all-time favorite date book and the one I have used each year for the past 10, the We'Moon: Gaia Rhythms For Womyn calendar (spiral-bound, ISBN 1-890931-07-1, $15.95, published by Mother Tongue Ink from Estacada, Oregon), always has a theme or topic. This year the subject matter is "Magic" - how apt!

I have enjoyed the We'Moon calendar for many years, because it has practically everything that I require in a calendar date book, and I particularly enjoy the feminine, Goddess focus. Some men may find it a bit female-centric, but most women will enjoy it. Brimming with images, artwork of an assortment of styles, poetry, short stories, herbal lore, chants, rituals, prose excerpts and an amazing amount of astrological data, it is delightful to behold as well as practical to use. The only thing I would like that it does not have is color artwork.

As of this year, the publisher has gone to a new spiral-binding format, and with that increased the price by a dollar. I'll have to see how that works for me in comparison to the old lie-flat perfect binding. The new binding definitely gives the book a fresh look; I nearly didn't recognize it. I like to combine my calendar and appointment book into one fairly small and light item to carry with me, so I use We'Moon.

We'Moon leads with a "year at a glance" calendar, with all the Full and New Moons highlighted, which is very practical for us witches! It expounds on natural cycles and the relationship between women and the Moon and goes on to clarify some changes specific to this year's version. It continues with a "how to use this book" section and explains the features included on the calendar pages, which serves both the uninitiated and long-time user.

We'Moon incorporates a great deal of convenient information on the daily level, such as Sun sign, Moon sign, Moon phase, lunar quarter phase, day of the week, eclipses and daily aspects. Other features are the Moon pages, which feature two pages of artwork near the New Moon; month- and year-at-a-glance pages; annual predictions for each Sun sign; holy days; herb features; time zones; a planetary ephemeris; and an asteroid ephemeris.

You'll find plenty of room on each day's space to write in appointments, thoughts, doodles or whatever, and when you use it as an appointment book, it is inspiring to consider that all of the artwork was done by women from around the world. I recommend it, especially for the feminine or Goddess-oriented person.

That's my favorite. But there are lots of other worthy chronological tools out there, and you may need to shop for people for whom We'Moon wouldn't be right. I also use wall calendars in my home and at work, so I can see upcoming dates at a glance. For these, I tend to fall for a blend of beauty and convenience, and I always hope to find a calendar that has all of the other criteria that I require, such as Moon phases, signs, simple astrological aspects, Sabbats, major public holidays, pagan holidays and so on. If the calendar has color photographs or artwork and good poetry, quotes, sayings or other inspirational data, those are all pluses!

I want to thank Llewellyn Publications for sending us review copies of many calendars and date books for 2001. These include:

Thanks to Rebecca from the Stonehouse and Melanie from Stargazers, I also got my hands on a few calendars in addition to We'Moon published by someone other than Llewellyn, including:

Llewellyn's: A Mixed Bag, with Witches,
Tarot and Spell Cube the Winners

Of the Llewellyn calendars, I like The Witches' Calendar despite very poor artwork - as is characteristic of Llewellyn Publications' books. What is it with Llewellyn and bad artwork? I do enjoy the superstitions and small spells that are included for every month. It has just enough astrological data to make me happy, and on every month page is a story or spell, some good, some downright sappy, all written by one of Llewellyn's most prolific writers. If you are looking for much interesting and useful magickal information, you'll like this calendar - but if you are an art lover, you'll want to pass.

Spiral-bound for ease of use and basically a smaller version of the above but with black-and-white and better art is The Witches' Datebook. It has the same basic astrological data, Moon phases, signs and so on, all in a date-book format that is small enough to be handy to carry. The sections "The Witching Hour," "Planetary Stations," "Modernizing Ancient Holidays," "May Day" and others are all fairly interesting reading, especially useful for beginners.

This is a helpful date book for witches, as it does include much of what affects us and our workings the most, as well as several interesting facts on most every day square. Recipes, meditations, a color for every day, seasonal hints and small spells occur in each section. Birthdays of famous or semi-famous people as well as magickal advice appear often, and there is a lot of poetry by Dorothy Morrison, author of Yule: A Celebration of Light and Warmth, reviewed in this issue.

I think this book would particularly serve new witches, with the right amount of magickal data and just enough out-of-the-ordinary stuff thrown in. With a few ads and an address book in the back, I like it, and I'd probably call it my second-choice date book.

I have also used Llewellyn's Astrological Calendar in the past. It has an excess of astrological data, including monthly horoscopes for every sign, a monthly ephemeris listing daily positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, Chiron and four asteroids, Moon quarters, Moon signs, Moon voids of course, Sun signs and planet stations changes, such as retrogrades. Daily planetary aspects and best hunting and fishing dates are a bonus if you like that sort of thing. Lunar gardening tips, a comprehensive guide to astrology, advice for travel and financial matters and a global prediction for 2001 round it out.

I find this calendar useful and complete, if a tad grandiose. You need to take a course or five in astrology to use it! It also suffers from the main downfall of Llewellyn's publications - it has weird artwork. It has a nice astrological correspondence table in the front, and I like the nice big boxes for the days, so you can write in it, but would I put it on my wall and look at that artwork every day for a year? No.

Another pet peeve of mine with Llewellyn's output is ads. Both the wall calendar and the Daily Planetary Guide 2001 date book have scads of them! You can always rip them out, as I have been known to do.

The Daily Planetary Guide 2001 is a smaller, date-book version of the wall calendar, without the bad artwork, in an easy-to-manage spiral-bound small book format. I prefer this book to the wall calendar. It has everything the calendar has and more, including weekly astrology forecasts, holidays and birthdays of famous people and an address book in the back. What it is lacking is any art to speak of. It's a decent date book, if you don't mind no art and many ads, especially for astrologers.

The third and smallest of Llewellyn's three astrological date books is the 2001 Astrological Pocket Planner. It opens with a simple "how to use" section including information on the Moon quarters, sign meanings, Moon voids of course, planetary movements, planting and harvesting times, time zone changes, planetary symbols and a day key showing all the pertinent data. It continues with lots of tiny planetary tables and a minuscule ephemeris.

It again would be great for those already familiar with astrology. It contains no extra information - no horoscopes and not much in the way of how to use the astrological data given. It is meager, with no artwork and not as many ads as the first two, but with its smaller pages, you find less room for aspects and to write in appointments or other important data. If you need to carry a very small calendar, I suppose this would work well, but I am not sure the size vs. information trade-off works here.

The Goddess Calendar 2001 is your basic everyday wall calendar offering, with slightly better color artwork than The Witches' Calendar. On the downside, it only shows the Full and New Moons, Sabbats, national holidays and mainstream religious holidays. The text is by Patricia Monoghan. It's not very good; I would think she'd do better! The artwork is by Hrana and is tolerable but far from great. This calendar might be a good one for the workplace if you're not quite "out of the broom closet" yet. However, I found offensive the bad poetry included with each month's sometimes equally bad Goddess picture. No astrological data, no spells, no recipes, just plain squares with dates in them.

The Tarot Calendar 2001 is better than The Goddess Calendar, and more oriented toward pagans and witches! It would be a good gift for a student of the Tarot. A wall calendar, it shows an enlarged color image of a Tarot card on each month, taken from the Nigel Jackson Tarot, Shapeshifter Tarot, Faery Wicca Tarot, Sacred Circle Tarot, Celtic Dragon Tarot, Robin Wood Tarot, Golden Dawn Tarot, Pythagorean Tarot or "Legend: the Arthurian Tarot."

I find this calendar enlightening on the Tarot, and easy to understand, beginning with an introduction that includes symbolism and an explanation about what's included and how to use it. Each month introduces a new Tarot spread, the usual astrological data and a Tarot card to meditate on each day. Interesting quotes appear on most days, popular holidays are shown, and some simple Tarot spells are incorporated, such as how to cleanse your deck. In the back, you find 12 large pages of educational information about Tarot reading, from simple card meanings to "21 Ways of Looking at the Tarot," "Alternate Major Arcanas," "The Round Dance of Tarot," "Astrology and Tarot" and more.

This year, the day squares are less busy than last, but if you want to write appointments in it, it will fill up fast. This calendar could still be a great daily aid if you happen to be studying the Tarot. I fear the artwork, again, is shaky, with some really nice renditions and some not so great, and Llewellyn has again included some ads at the back. But these ads are all Tarot-related, so their inclusion didn't bother me as much as in other calendars. The back also features networking resources, which might prove helpful to some; I think they make up for the ads. Altogether, a good Tarot-oriented calendar.

A new offering from Llewellyn Publications, the Spell A Day 2001 Calendar desk cube, is a great idea! It has a square tear-off date format that can sit flat or hang on a wall. Each day has a simple, short spell such as a moving ritual, a spell for a safe trip, a home blessing, a spell to get rid of warts, a spell to feel loved and a whole year's worth more! Most of the spells are practical if simplistic; you will recognize many authors, Scott Cunningham, Gerina Dunwich, Silver Ravenwolf, Amber K, our own local Yasmine Galenorn and more. The calendar also has a short admonition in the back about using magick, along with some tables of astrological symbols, runes and other correspondences. I like this calendar and think you will too, and I'll just keep this one myself for my desk!

The Rest: Lots of Good Stuff

Another of my favorites and a departure from the mainstream is The '01 Lunar Calendar. This is the twenty-fifth year this beautiful wall calendar has been published. The '01 Lunar Calendar has appealing artwork on the cover, and it has interesting if simple black-and-white artwork inside - some with really good poetry. It has a completely different format - not a month laid out on a standard calendar, but rather a spiral Moon format. I find it appealing but difficult to track, with no day squares at all, just Moon phases with dates above or below and simple astrological data for each day, including signs, voids of course and setting and rising times. Celtic tree months are shown with green tree leaves screened over the dates. Chinese years are noted also, as are solstices, equinoxes and eclipses. I like this one to look at, but practically speaking, it would take a while for me to get used to. Your mileage may vary.

I haven't seen an Essene Book of Days for quite a few years. I had heard that Danaan Perry, author and creator of the Earthstewards Network, had passed on, and I was not sure the book was still being published. But apparently his estate is still honoring the ideals he left behind, and this wonderful date book is better than ever! I used it for a number of years in the early '80s, and I really enjoyed it for the intense inner growth and the focus on the earth cycles that it promotes.

As it states in the front of the book, The Essene Book of Days is "a personal journal-calendar-spiritual guide which allows you to dissolve the barriers to your own spiritual awareness gently as you reconnect with the rhythms of the natural order." In soft yellow paper and soothing green print, it is a peaceful combination of journal, calendar, meditation workbook and inspirational reading.

If you don't know who the Essenes are, it seems they lived around the time Jesus was thought to be on earth, and it is said that they wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. This book is a bit Christianized for my current tastes, but if you don't mind a few references to Jesus, angels and God, it shouldn't bother you.

The cover features a beautiful, glossy color photo on the cover of mountain-cliff caves, and simple but good line art appears inside, including seasonal depictions of apple trees, which are a focus this year. It has a marvelous structure for each day, beginning with a seasonal focus, then a morning focus, an opening, a meditation, what you wish to work on that day, a place for you to write down your feelings, an evening focus and a blessing. It also has Moon phases, astrological signs, pagan holidays and more. At $15.95, this is a perfect Yule gift for your Christian or mainstream friends or family who are open to knowing more about what it is that we do!

Animal Spirits, 2001 Deluxe Engagement Book is a lovely hardbound book with semi-glossy color prints of Susan Seddon Boulet's paintings, larger ones on the half page and some smaller versions interspersed. Susan, a very prolific painter who passed into the otherworld several years ago, has long been known for her shamanistic visions of animals and people. The artwork is mostly delightful, with just a few pieces not up to her usual quality.

You will like Animal Spirits if you like animals or pretty color art. However, this book doesn't have a lot else to recommend it as a calendar or appointment book. Yes, it has a calendar, done prettily in colored numbers a week at a time, and it has nice big spaces on each day where you can write appointments. But it only has the bare minimum as far as Moon phases - full, new and quarter - no Moon signs, Mercury retrograde dates or any other astrological data. National holidays for the United States, Canada and the British Isles are included.

My favorite thing other than the art was the fact that at the bottom of each right-hand page is a whole small calendar of days and dates of the week. Pretty art, but for $16.95 I'd like a little more.

Georgia Stathis has only been publishing the StarCycles Calendar Appointment Book for five years, but it is a very good astrological date book. It begins with a preface that follows her personal transitions as well as some of the trends of the past. It then moves on to the months of 2001 and the Chinese astrological Year of the Metal Snake forecast. A section containing this year's horoscopes for every Chinese astrological animal says that, as a snake in the metal snake year, I might have a hard year coming up? but I think I already did that!

In any case, Moon cycles, retrogrades, eclipses and an astrological overview are all covered nicely. I like the no-nonsense approach Georgia uses. First, she uses Pacific time, which is great; next, she starts out her forecasts with the highlights and then moves to general information and then to the date part of the calendar. The book includes basic astrological information, holidays, Moon signs and Moon voids of course, and it also has little symbols for movement, ideas, love and more on the days when the things in question are in the forefront energetically.

The book is spiral bound to lie flat, has plenty of room to write appointments or thoughts and is small enough to carry around. I like this book a lot; it seems ideal for those who are beginners in astrology. Its down-to-earth, easy to understand approach reminds me of the "For Dummies" computer books - this one is "Astrology For Dummies."

In a convenient appointment-book size that lies flat when open, Jim Maynard's Celestial Guide 2001 date book is more to my liking than just about any other except We'Moon. It has something most of the rest do not have - an "If Found, Please Return To" place to write your name in the front, in case you happen to lose it. I think this is a great idea. I have lost my appointment book before, and I know it is not fun!

This date book is also by far the most popular with witches and those into mainstream astrology. I always liked it myself and used it before I discovered the We'Moon. It has an abundance of astrological information, a fine ephemeris, an almanac and plenty of astrological instruction text.

Kicking off with the 2000 Winter Solstice and continuing through January 2002, it has a great deal of basic astrological data, including aspects; Moon and Sun signs; Eastern, Standard and Pacific times; holidays; famous people's birthdays; and meteor showers. Rounded out with the declinations and asteroids, sunrises and sunsets, Moon planting times, meteor showers and the Chinese year, it has a sizeable variety of information. It includes a table of planetary motions and a section on eclipses for 2001, moving on to a description of each Zodiac sign, Moon signs, the lunar cycle, a summary of the planets, aspects and a "How to Use" page. It also covers the Moon's voids of course, time corrections and a world time-zone map. An ephemeris for all the planets and asteroids, a table of ascendants, rulers in both inches and centimeters, a few zodiac wheels to write personal charts and an address book complete the picture.

Each day square has astrological information, with the Moon phases large enough to see at a glance and birthdays of famous people. The day squares are roomier than some, with enough space to write in appointments, and best of all it is all done in Pacific Time!

Very few ads in the very back also make this date book one of the better ones. It's more for a serious astrology student than the average witch. The artwork is somewhat better this year than it has been in the past. A very fine offering from Jim Maynard, highly recommended; I'd buy it myself.

I think one of the best astrology date books available (and the least expensive at $4.95) is Jim Maynard's 2001 Pocket Astrologer. It has nearly all the same information as the larger versions, only smaller and simplified, with an easier-to-carry design. Simpler than the others, it is less daunting for the average person. The very small day squares are a drawback, but they couldn't be bigger in a book this size. The other drawback is that the text, in tiny type, can be very hard to read. Don't get this one for an older person, unless they wear bifocals!

Each month in this date book has a half-page, full-color picture with a handy ephemeris on the other half page, and each month lists planting days and planets visible in the morning and evening skies. This is the best pocket date book available, in my opinion. Jim Maynard also publishes a wall calendar called Celestial Influences 2001.

Most of these calendars can be purchased at local independent bookstores such as The Stonehouse, 7829 Leary Way, Redmond, phone (425) 883-7825, Stargazers in Bellevue and other Seattle stores that advertise in Widdershins, such as Edge of the Circle Books. Please support pagan and pagan-friendly businesses.

I hope this eases your Yule shopping! Have a blissful Solstice and a happy, healthy, prosperous and love-filled year!

Sylvana SilverWitch, a long-time member of the Seattle pagan community, is the high priestess of Sylvan Grove, publisher of Widdershins, a psychic reader, a professional tattoo artist and body piercer, a writer, an artist and a deliciously scandalous wench. She can be contacted through Widdershins by leaving a message at (206) 366-2265 or directly at (206) 608-9908, or you can e-mail her at Sylvanas@juno.com.

Copyright © 2006 by the article's author

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